6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kids Love It, August 30, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe (Hardcover)
I have been reading this book to my 6 year old daughter and she loves it. The stories are great and talks about places in the USA. I highly recommend this book to all children. It seems that the old folk tales are being lost and it's great to find stories that keep them alive.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A dignified presentation of one of America's legendary tall-tales., April 25, 2010
PAUL BUNYAN SWINGS HIS AXE by Dell McCormick is a 111 page hardcover book. The cover is noted for its sturdiness. The pages are made of thick paper, almost like thin cardboard. Inside the front cover is a 2-page spread, in green ink, showing a map of the United States. The map shows little images from various Paul Bunyan stories, e.g., an upside down mountain, Babe the blue ox, the giant pancake griddle, Paul Bunyan dragging his axe thereby creating the Grand Canyon, etc. The book contains 22 black and white ink drawings. The drawings are all in a simple style, to some extent resembling the no-nonsense pen & ink drawings that were once used in newspaper advertisements for supermarket produce.
There are 17 stories in this book, and 21 stories in another book by the same author, called, TALL TIMBER TALES MORE PAUL BUNYAN STORIES. At any rate, of the 17 stories, the second tells about Paul's discovery and rescue of Babe. The third discloses Paul's invention of the double bladed axe. The next story tells about a ten acre griddle pan, where cookhouse boys skated with bacon strapped on their feet in order to grease the pan. Another story tells how Johnny Inkslinger invented an eraser that only erased mistakes, and left accurate numbers intact. Further on into the book, we find a story disclosing how the fog in North Dakota was so thick that it confused the fish, and the fish swam out of the streams and through the fog, and that the fog was so thick that lumberjacks had to chop a tunnel through it. The 12th story tells how the heat in Arizona was so intense that the sacks of corn carried by Paul Bunyan's lumberjacks started to pop, and how everybody (except Paul) thought that the popcorn was snow, and that they all put on heavy coats to keep warm.
The book presents the Paul Bunyan legend in a straightforward and dignified manner. In contrast, a number of more recently published Paul Bunyan stories contain colored pictures in a comic book style similar to that in the Curious George books. I prefer a more dignified drawing style for Paul Bunyan stories. Rockwell Kent, who illustrated an edition of Melville's MOBY DICK, is the type of illustrator that I believe to be best for Paul Bunyan stories.
I also recommend a fine recording, available on compact disc and cassette tape, of PAUL BUNYAN, read by famed actor and comedian Jonathan Winters. The reading is accompanied by the guitar of famed folk-musician Duck Baker. Jonathan Winters' recording can be found on the RABBIT EARS label. Rabbit Ears Entertainment is located in Norwalk, Connecticut.
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